[.ca] Car Wheels On A Gravel Road

Chronique amazon.fr:
Cet album aura projeté Lucinda Williams à sa juste place, en tête de tous les charts de country alternative l'année de sa sortie en 1998. Pourtant, en termes de médiatisation, Lucinda n'aura pas fait davantage pour celui-ci que pour les quatre précédents. Ce n'est qu'un juste retour des choses. Depuis 1979, la chanteuse-guitariste la plus bouleversante du sud de l'Amérique n'a cessé d'écrire des chansons qui touchent au coeur. C'est cette voix blessée, ce sont ces suites d'accords en apesanteur, naturels et évidents, et c'est toujours une bande de musiciens dévoués à la dame, à l'image du très inspiré guitariste Gurf Morlix qui économise ses notes pour livrer les plus exactes d'entre elles au détour d'un refrain. Après il y a les histoires, souvent désespérées sans être jamais résignées. Lucinda Williams, qui semble vivre dans un univers accidenté, entourée de plus fragiles qu'elle encore, n'a pas de rival(e) pour exprimer ces solitudes et ces douleurs. Lorsqu'on lit ou que l'on entend ses mots, le ciel s'assombrit et l'émotion serre la gorge. Pourtant on continue à écouter car on croit instantanément à ces chansons et on veut en connaître la suite. Avec les mots les plus simples, une façon de construire des phrases comme si elles avaient été faites pour ces mélodies-là, Lucinda Williams possède le génie des plus grands et a la classe des seigneurs. Cet album s'impose comme l'une des pièces majeures parues dans le dernier quart de siècle. --José Ruiz

From Amazon.co.uk:
Lucinda Williams makes this whole music thing seem so simple: Write in plain language about the people and places that crowd your memory; add subtle flavors of a mandolin here, a Dobro there, perhaps an accordion or slide guitar; above all, sing as honestly and naturally as you can. Of course, it took her six years to achieve this simplicity, an amazing achievement considering the number of knobs that were turned. Her exquisite voice moans and groans and slips and slides--she delivers a polished tone in a coarse manner. On the superb "Concrete and Barbed Wire", soft acoustic guitars are punctuated by electric slide, accordion, mandolin, and Steve Earle's harmony. Williams's deeply personal stories are matched with bluesy rumbles, raunchy grooves, and plaintive whispers. The entire Deep South is reduced to a sleepy small town filled with ex-lovers, dive bars, and endless gravel roads. --Marc Greilsamer

Amazon.com essential recording:
Lucinda Williams makes this whole music thing seem so simple: Write in plain language about the people and places that crowd your memory; add subtle flavors of a mandolin here, a Dobro there, perhaps an accordion or slide guitar; above all, sing as honestly and naturally as you can. Of course, it took her six years to achieve this simplicity, an amazing achievement considering the number of knobs that were turned. Her exquisite voice moans and groans and slips and slides--she delivers a polished tone in a coarse manner. On the superb "Concrete and Barbed Wire," soft acoustic guitars are punctuated by electric slide, accordion, mandolin, and Steve Earle's harmony. Williams's deeply personal stories are matched with bluesy rumbles, raunchy grooves, and plaintive whispers. The entire Deep South is reduced to a sleepy small town filled with ex-lovers, dive bars, and endless gravel roads. --Marc Greilsamer

Six years in the making, Car Wheels somehow lives up to its lofty expectations because of Williams's direct songwriting and her wonderfully unaffected vocals. With assistance from cohorts such as Steve Earle, Williams uses the acoustic accents of Dobros, mandolins, slide guitars, and accordions to add color to her grooves, whispers, and rumbles. Her lyrics are undisguised as she presents to us the travelogue of her memory. We can't wait for 2004! --Marc Greilsamer

One of the best albums ever:
I had a few Lucinda Williams albums, including "World Without Tears", before I finally bought "Car Wheels". I was totally unprepared for the perfection of this work. If these lyrics don't move you, if the music doesn't get your foot tapping, then you must be dead. I guarantee that three listens to this collection and you'll have at least one of the songs stuck looping in your head, but it is impossible to say which song, because all are nearly perfect. And the title track may just be as close to a perfect transference of a feeling from a song that I've ever experienced. This isn't country, folk, rock or blues, this is m-u-s-i-c at its finest. The listener and critical reviews for "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road", here or on any other site or forum, show this to be perhaps the most consistently well-loved album in history. To the few who gave it two or three stars, I'll communicate with you at your level: Duh.

One of my favourite albums:
I can't think of too many albums that I would recommend as highly as I would this one. I love it!

Lucinda's Got It All:
Trying to find the words to praise this album is difficult. It is without a doubt one of my top 5 albums. Her lyrics show her soul and sometimes my own. One has to wonder about the life she's lead when one listens to her music. Much pain and much happiness! Contradiction...I think if you had to describe her music...that would be the word. She is bar none one of the greatest songwriters of our time...and her concerts are not to be missed!

Lucinda Wms:
Awsome Vocals Catchy Tunes The Female Bob Dylan In A Singer/Songwriter Kinda Way She Jams

Life's Travel Log:
On her journey though the South Lucinda Williams pulls material from a lot of relationships that don't work out. Uniquely, she is neither bashing nor whiney. While there were a number of abuses and betrayals, there was always something there which melded the relationship together. In a world of shining smiles or broken arms, she is little tiny bruises and a single red rose, just a picture of subtle simplicity. While Williams tells her tales you get the sense you could overheard the same stories at a family reunion or a bar. The album starts off with the lusty "Right In Time," which showcases Williams suffusing more lust into a single "OOOOOHHHH my baby" than a stable of bare belly buttons and sheet writhers. Williams then breaks to set the scene in the title track "Sittin' on the front porch, a house in Macon/Loretta singing on the radio." Williams then saunters into her favorite little hole in the wall bar in "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten," a place full of legendary blues singers, snake handlers and truisms. "Drunken Angel" is a driving, edgy rock tale of looking back with loss at a self destructive boyfriend. Williams conj ours the ghost of Howlin' Wolf for some old school Southern blues on "Concrete and Barbed Wire." "Lake Charles" is one of the more country feeling song on the album, a casual tale of a man's love for his adopted hometown. Williams then dons a sultry blues pout for a rare cover song, Randy Weeks' "Can't Let Go." This opens into a full on wail for the most fun Williams has on the cd and possibly ever, the falling in love tune "I Lost It," which finds her teasing a love interest with "I think I lost it/let me know if you come across it." The rock and roll comes back to the forefront for "Metal Firecracker," where she looks back fondly at a lost love fondly, musing "All I ask is don't tell anybody the secrets/don't tell anybody the secrets I told you." Next come the haunted and haunting "Greenville," a country flavored song of letting go where she murmurs a goodbye to a hard drinking, hard living musicians. The only disappointing spot on the album is the cleaner, prettied up version of "Still I Long For Your Kiss," which doesn't quite match the emotional punch of the version on The Horse Whisperer Soundtrack. "Joy" is a garage band blues rock power house rant of betrayal. She closes the album with the simple and subtle good bye of "Jackson." Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is more of a roots blues album, however, it is an album with plenty of music to attract country fans, from Williams rough shod vocals to her soul journey through the South. And that is what this album is, a road map of the South with lingering memories of the life and loves lets on its dots. She pulls from all the roots music of her childhood, the music of this terrain, a plethora of folk, rock, country and blues. She was roots music when roots music wasn't cool.

• Right in Time
• Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
• 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
• Drunken Angel
• Concrete and Barbed Wire
• Lake Charles
• Can't Let Go
• I Lost It
• Metal Firecracker
• Greenville
• Still I Long for Your Kiss
• Joy
• Jackson